Electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system

Abstract

An electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system includes: a hardware processor that determines that a first user of a first electronic mail address that is designated as a destination of a sending electronic mail that has been sent and a second user of a second electronic mail address as a sending source of a reply electronic mail that has been sent are identical. The first user and the second user are identical when the hardware processor determines that values indicating identification information that is included in and specific to the sending electronic mail match specific identification information that is included in an electronic mail of a reply source of the reply electronic mail. The reply electronic email is sent, after the sending electronic mail, with a sending source of the sending electronic mail as a destination

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system comprising:
 a hardware processor that:
 determines whether a first user of a first electronic mail address and a second user of a second electronic mail address are identical, wherein the first electronic mail address is designated as a destination of a sending electronic mail that has been sent and the second electronic mail address is designated as a sending source of a reply electronic mail that has been sent, 
 determines whether a value indicating identification information that is included in and specific to the sending electronic mail matches a value indicating specific identification information that is included in an electronic mail of a reply source of the reply electronic mail, 
 determines that the first user and the second user are identical when the value indicating identification information matches the value indicating specific identification information, wherein 
   the reply electronic email is sent, after the sending electronic mail, with a sending source of the sending electronic mail as a destination.   
     
     
         2 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 1 , wherein
 the first electronic mail address is included in a “To” field of a mail header,   the second electronic mail address is included in a “From” field of the mail header,   the identification information is included in a “Message-ID” field of the mail header, and   the value indicating the specific identification information is included in a “In-Reply-To” field of the mail header.   
     
     
         3 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 2 , wherein when a plurality of electronic mail addresses is included in the “From” field, the second electronic mail address is set to be included in a “Sender” field of the mail header. 
     
     
         4 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 1 , wherein when the recognition has been performed and a plurality of destinations are designated in the sending electronic mail, the hardware processor:
 causes a user to select one of the plurality of destinations, and   determines that a user of an electronic mail address of the selected destination and the second user are identical.   
     
     
         5 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 1 , wherein when there are a plurality of reply electronic mails with the sending source of the sending electronic mail as a destination and the values indicating specific identification information included in a sending electronic mail of the reply source matches an identifier specific to the sending electronic mail, the hardware processor determines that a user of the electronic mail address of a sending source of one of the plurality of reply electronic mails and a user of an electronic mail address that is designated as a destination of the sending electronic mail are different. 
     
     
         6 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 5 , wherein the hardware processor:
 determines that users of two electronic mail addresses are identical when an electronic mail address of a sending source of one electronic mail and an electronic mail address designated as a reply destination are different, and   determines that users of electronic mail addresses of sending sources of the plurality of reply electronic mails and a user of an electronic mail address that is designated as a destination of the sending electronic mail are identical when the processor determines that the users of the electronic mail addresses of the sending sources of the plurality of reply electronic mails are identical.   
     
     
         7 . An electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system comprising:
 a hardware processor that determines that users of two electronic mail addresses are identical when a first electronic mail address indicating a sending source of a first electronic mail and a second electronic mail address designated as a reply destination of a second electronic mail are different.   
     
     
         8 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 7 , wherein
 the first electronic mail address is included in a “From” field in a mail header, and   the second electronic mail address is included in a “Reply-To” field of the mail header.   
     
     
         9 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 8 , wherein when a plurality of electronic mail addresses are included in the “From” field, the first electronic mail address is included in a “Sender” field of the mail header. 
     
     
         10 . An electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system comprising:
 a hardware processor that:
 determines whether a user of an electronic mail address of a sending source of a first electronic mail that has been sent and received is identical to a user of an electronic mail address of a sending source of a second electronic mail that has been sent and received, 
 determines whether a first sentence feature extracted from text of the first electronic mail matches a second sentence feature extracted from text of the second electronic mail, and 
 determines that the user of the electronic mail address of the sending source of the first electronic mail is identical to the user of the electronic mail address of the sending source of the second electronic mail when the first sentence feature matches the second sentence feature. 
   
     
     
         11 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 10 , wherein the first and second sentence features are at least one of a part recognized as a typographical error, a style of writing symbols, Chinese characters, a Hiragana conversion pattern, a punctuation method, and a line feed or line blank inputting method. 
     
     
         12 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor:
 prepares and displays a correlation diagram with an electronic mail address as a terminal that is expressed by a line segment connecting a first terminal that corresponds to the electronic mail address as a sending source of a sent and received electronic mail and a second terminal that corresponds to an electronic mail address as a destination, and   gathers and displays a plurality of electronic mail addresses on the terminal, users that have been determined to be identical.   
     
     
         13 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 12 , further comprising:
 a storage that stores the sent and received electronic mail, wherein   the hardware processor prepares the correlation diagram based on the electronic mails stored in the storage.   
     
     
         14 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 12 , wherein the hardware processor performs the determination when the hardware processor prepares and displays the correlation diagram. 
     
     
         15 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 13 , wherein the hardware processor performs the determination on an imported new electronic mail when the new electronic mail is imported to the storage. 
     
     
         16 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 12 , wherein the hardware processor:
 transmits an inquiry about whether a plurality of electronic mail addresses where users have been determined to be identical are gathered and displayed on one of the first or second terminals, and   gathers and displays the plurality of electronic mail addresses, users that have been determined to be identical, on the terminal only when the hardware processor has been instructed to gather and display the electronic mail addresses.   
     
     
         17 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 7 , wherein the hardware processor:
 prepares and displays a correlation diagram with an electronic mail address as a terminal that is expressed by a line segment connecting a first terminal corresponding to the electronic mail address as a sending source of a sent and received electronic mail and a second terminal that corresponds to an electronic mail address as a destination, and   gathers and displays a plurality of electronic mail addresses on the terminal, users that have been determined to be identical.   
     
     
         18 . The electronic mail sender and recipient correlation determination system according to  claim 10 , wherein the hardware processor:
 prepares and displays a correlation diagram with an electronic mail address as a terminal that is expressed by a line segment connecting a first terminal corresponding to the electronic mail address as a sending source of a sent and received electronic mail and a second terminal that corresponds to an electronic mail address as a destination, and   gathers and displays a plurality of electronic mail addresses on the terminal, users that have been determined to be identical.